so – i was thinking a few weeks ago that I hadn’t been able to get hold of any Juliet Berto films other than Celine and Julie. So I’ve been searching pretty regularly on ebay recently and I finally found a DVD copy of Duelle.

Duelle was released in 1976, and is in a way the logical film to follow up Celine and Julie – it was t Jacques Rivette’s next film, and as well as Berto.it stars Bulle Ogier (Camille from Celine and Julie). It received a very limited release outside France.

I received the DVD on Christmas Eve (so a welcome extra Christmas present). The film is in French, not a language I speak with any fluency, and was not subtitled. Of course I knew that when I bought it – but what the hell – I thought I could watch it – guess the plot and enjoy the photography.

Anyway – a bit of research after Christmas – google as ever is my best friend – and I found an amazing website that allows people to share, upload and download film subtitles – and on there – someone has very helpfully put English subtitles for Duelle.

So subtitles downloaded – what to do with them. Google again – and apparently there is a free plug in for windows media player that lets you add a subtitle file to a video. That downloaded – but couldn’t make it work – despite loads of people on various forums saying it was foolproof and simple. Well it fooled me.

Another hour of search and download and failure before I found VLC media player. A freeward product that can play DVD movies and merge in separate subtitle files. Success at last. Watched the first few minutes of the film to find that the subtitles were out of sync with the sound track by about five seconds, the text came up before the speech so you had to predict who might be saying what.

Google again – and more freeware – subtitle workshop – which allows you to edit and re-sync the titles. Finally, after about four hours I got to watch Duelle – in French – with English subtitles.

I was just so impressed by my techie wizardry!. The verdict on the film – a wonderful lost masterpiece of course.

Alan Fish on Wonders In the Dark says:Duelleis not listed in virtually any major film book, from film guides to the mighty tomes of the critical elite, it’s disappeared like one of its ethereal protagonists. Maybe Rivette is his own Keyser Soze, and the greatest trick he ever pulled was making you think Duelle didn’t exist. One hesitates to say too much about the plot of Duelle – it can be fatal you know – and I’ll limit myself to saying it’s about the search for the magical Fairy Godmother crystal by two vengeful Gods who want to wreak havoc on the earth all the year round rather than be phantoms a mere 40 days a year. Gods and humans alike seek the stone, and many die, Malory-like, in the attempt.

There are essences of numerous films before and since, and though the majority are from Rivette’s own oeuvre, those who have seen Harry Kumel’s Malpertuis will have the advantage of everyone else. Fans of Antonioni will also find much to appreciate, not least in a final showdown on a grassy park not dissimilar to one immortalised in Blow-Up. The Fairy Godmother stone is both a MacGuffin to end them all and the very meaning of existence itself. Or else it is nothing, for that’s what Duelle is about really; everything and nothing. About the reduction of everything to a state where two plus two is no longer four and all the walls of time and space collapse. The two rival goddesses are Queen Mabs of the mind, trying to extend their existence from one reality to another, and it’s appropriate that they are played – and played is the right word, for all the world’s a magical playground for Rivette – by two of his mainstays, Bulle Ogier and Juliet Berto. Ogier in particular is hard to forget, a Mab in androgynous modern dress, slinking around like a malnourished baroque vampire. It’s impossible to describe for those not in the know, but its effect is symbolised in the new moon, like a cinematic Stonehenge aligned directly to be lit by the rising moon not on a Salstice, but on the first full moon in spring. Even now, writing after seeing it again, one expects to wake up still; there is no Duelle. It doesn’t exist, a dream described like those in the film, aquariums in the night.

Started watching Céline and Julie Go Boating again over the weekend, it’s my ultimate comfort film. At something over three hours it’s often too long to watch at a stretch, so I usually split it into episodes over two or three nights. I usually turn to it around now, when the dark and cold draws in – it radiates pure heat – the sun on the Parisian streets, the cats lazing in the park and the gardens of 7 bis Rue du Nadir aux Pommes. After a glass or two of red wine I’m back in the summer time.

There’s also Juliet Berto of course, as Céline. I could watch Juliet all day long, her classic French pout, her wild expressions, it’s so sad to think that she died so young, and just as sad that Céline and Julie is the only film of hers that appears readily available on dvd. I’ve searched everywhere for copies of Duelle, Neige or Mr Klein with no success.

I have been fascinated by this film for years. It never made the cinema chains in England, but was limited to occasional art house showings. I remember one hot summer’s day, dragging reluctant friends away from an idyllic picnic party by a river to sit in a dark sparsely population cinema for three hours.

It was always my ambition to walk through Paris, to track down the locations, to climb the stairs by the funicular, to sit in those parks in the heat and to track down 7bis if it’s still standing. It was always my plan to set up a shrine to Juliet Berto here on the internet – to collect all her films and pictures together as she fades into the history books.

Céline and Julie I think has been analysed to death by the cinema experts, to trace the allusions and sources. But that’s not its appeal for me. I’m a fan – a Céline and Julie fan – for me it remains a magical enigma – I just need to watch again and again – to watch as Sophie weaves her plan to poison Madlyn – to watch Julie destroy Céline’s career and Céline destroy Julie’s engagement The scene outside the theatre, where Céline animatedly (and with such French style) recounts her meeting with her ‘vrai Americienne’ with a pink heart shaped swimming pool. (For such a free flowing script apparently that was the only improvised scene). I love the fashions, how dated it seems, a commentary on the dvd remarks that the 1970s fashions Céline and Julie wear – the stacked heels, Julie’s skirts – look probably more dated than those of the 1930s film within a film characters – and it’s true.

of course parts of it grate – it is dated and Julie’s squeaks and squeals and the occasional manic laughter when they roll around drunk on the magic potion are slightly embarrassing when someone catches me watching

Céline and Julie is now a piece of cinema history, hiding under piles of dust emerging only occasionally when some film student or historian thinks it worthy of another research paper. But for me it’s an integral part of my past – as I say a comfort film to forget the present and take me back to better days.